On the dark, shadowy side of the postmodern condition, we stumble upon transiency and fragmentation, alienation and rootlessness.

In this lecture, I will look at ‘the never guilty mass man’, of the post-modern condition, related to Erich Neumann’s concept of recollectivization.

Particularly, we may observe the relationship between the individual and the fragmented group, which constellates as transient crowd formation. In the condition of recollectivization, ego and consciousness are lost in the group, however, in a way strikingly different from the early state of oneness with the group.

Recollection serves as an antidote to recollectivization, and may show us “how we should act when the libido gets blocked” (CW 5). A smell and a fragrance, a subtle taste “of a cake dipped in tea,” as Proust says, re-calling a childhood memory, a lost time, a forgotten era, and the recollection of ancient wisdom and the ancestors, may provide the individual, as well as the group, with an anchor across the boundaries of time, by means of linking back to past heritage, and serving as a bridge to future developments. Thus, recollection is a central aspect of the conscious, explored life.

Erel Shalit is a Jungian psychoanalyst in Tel Aviv, past President of the Israel Society of Analytical Psychology, and founding Director of the Jungian Analytical Psychotherapy Program at Bar Ilan University. He is the author of several books, and chair of the forthcoming Jung Neumann Letters Conference, April 24-26, 2015.

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Erel Shalit is a Jungian psychoanalyst in Ra’anana, Israel. He is a training and supervising analyst, and past president of the Israel Society of Analytical Psychology (ISAP). He is the author of several publications, including The Hero and His Shadow: Psychopolitical Aspects of Myth and Reality in Israel and The Complex: Path of Transformation from Archetype to Ego. Articles of his have have appeared inQuadrant, The Jung Journal, Spring Journal, PoliticalPsychology, ClinicalSupervisor, RoundTableReview, Jung Page, Midstream, and he has entries in The Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Dr. Shalit lectures at professional institutes, universities and cultural forums in Israel, Europe and the United States.